14 The Most Common Factors Effecting Ground Water Quality
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14.4.2 Several Decision Situations Where the AHP Method
May Be Applied Include
Choice: The process of selecting one option from a given set of options that is
generally applied when the selection involves multi-decision criteria.
• Ranking: Structuring the set of alternatives from most desirable to least.
• Prioritizing: Establishing the competent elements in a set of alternatives rather
than determining a single element or just simply ranking them.
• Resource Allocating: Distributing resources between a set of alternatives.
• Benchmarking: Comparing the organizations system with that of a well-known
organization.
• Quality Management: Managing and handling the multi-dimensional features of
quality and quality enhancement.
• Settling Conflicts: Resolving conflicts among individuals/groups with obvious
opposing objectives.
The amount of AHP application in complicated decisions has numbered in the
thousands (Steiguer et al. 2003) and developed remarkable outcomes in complications that involve planning, resource allocation, prioritizing and selection between
alternatives (Bhushan and Rai 2004). Several fields that have also used AHP to solve
problems are forecasting, total quality management, business process reengineer,
quality function distribution and the balanced record. (Forman et al. 2001) Not all
applications of AHP have been recorded, given that some of these applications occur
in high-level organizations where privacy and security restricts the sharing of such
information.
14.5 Methodology
The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is an approach that was first introduced by
Saaty (Saaty 2008) to support multi-criteria decisions. The term ‘Analytic’ represents
the process of breaking down the problem into fundamental elements. ‘Hierarchy’
represents the hierarchy structure of the fundamental elements that is listed with
respect to the main objective. The term ‘Process’ represents the data and judgements
that are processed to achieve the final outcome. The methodology has been broadly
applied in numerous fields such as software selection complications (Min 1992),
economic and management problem resolving (Yang and Lee 1997), plant location
selection (Chan et al. 2004), supplier selection (Kahraman et al. 2003), assessment
of project termination or maintenance based on the benchmarking technique (Liang
2003), choosing the best alternative among various outsourcing contracts relevant to
maintenance services (Bertolini et al. 2004), and much more. The AHP is formed
on two phases: (i) the hierarchy tree definition: (ii) the numerical assessment of the
tree. The hierarchy tree definition begins at determining the proposed objective. The
135
14.4.2 Several Decision Situations Where the AHP Method
May Be Applied Include
Choice: The process of selecting one option from a given set of options that is
generally applied when the selection involves multi-decision criteria.
• Ranking: Structuring the set of alternatives from most desirable to least.
• Prioritizing: Establishing the competent elements in a set of alternatives rather
than determining a single element or just simply ranking them.
• Resource Allocating: Distributing resources between a set of alternatives.
• Benchmarking: Comparing the organizations system with that of a well-known
organization.
• Quality Management: Managing and handling the multi-dimensional features of
quality and quality enhancement.
• Settling Conflicts: Resolving conflicts among individuals/groups with obvious
opposing objectives.
The amount of AHP application in complicated decisions has numbered in the
thousands (Steiguer et al. 2003) and developed remarkable outcomes in complications that involve planning, resource allocation, prioritizing and selection between
alternatives (Bhushan and Rai 2004). Several fields that have also used AHP to solve
problems are forecasting, total quality management, business process reengineer,
quality function distribution and the balanced record. (Forman et al. 2001) Not all
applications of AHP have been recorded, given that some of these applications occur
in high-level organizations where privacy and security restricts the sharing of such
information.
14.5 Methodology
The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is an approach that was first introduced by
Saaty (Saaty 2008) to support multi-criteria decisions. The term ‘Analytic’ represents
the process of breaking down the problem into fundamental elements. ‘Hierarchy’
represents the hierarchy structure of the fundamental elements that is listed with
respect to the main objective. The term ‘Process’ represents the data and judgements
that are processed to achieve the final outcome. The methodology has been broadly
applied in numerous fields such as software selection complications (Min 1992),
economic and management problem resolving (Yang and Lee 1997), plant location
selection (Chan et al. 2004), supplier selection (Kahraman et al. 2003), assessment
of project termination or maintenance based on the benchmarking technique (Liang
2003), choosing the best alternative among various outsourcing contracts relevant to
maintenance services (Bertolini et al. 2004), and much more. The AHP is formed
on two phases: (i) the hierarchy tree definition: (ii) the numerical assessment of the
tree. The hierarchy tree definition begins at determining the proposed objective. The